


Dying is Easy

by intaspend



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Drug Use, Finally, Gavin Dies, Hanahaki Disease, Kinda Fast Paced, M/M, Near Death, RK-900 dies too, Really Sudden Ending, Several Near Deaths, action sequences, gun use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 02:36:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15940043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intaspend/pseuds/intaspend
Summary: It took less then a month for the Android to worm his way into Gavin's heart.How long would it take to kill him?





	Dying is Easy

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, this is pretty fast paced and it's still 7 pages longer than I meant it to be so,,,,, 
> 
> I meant it to be like 1'500-2000 words
> 
> Notice: I apologize! I just now noticed that what I assumed was the Gavin/ RK900 tag was the Connor/Gavin/900 tag. I have fixed the error and deeply apologize.
> 
> Typos embarrass me more if I realize them after a year then if someone just straight out tells me. Please do.

It was easy, for him, knowing he would die. With his personality you'd think… Well, it didn't matter to him what anyone else thought, it had always been his intention to go down in flames. That's how he ended up here, hanging off a roof by a hand, alone, holding flower petals in his clenched left fist. He was going to die, one way or another. He was just glad it wasn't from flower petals.  
  
But this is the end of the story. Let's take it back to the beginning, as many stories do.  
  
Gavin Reed was on his last legs, mentally, at this point. It had started a month ago, when he’d been given a fucking tin can as a partner. Fuck, he knows that after the fucking revolution Hank’s success rate went up ten-fold with the tin can by his side, but he still had a better record than Hank and the captain knows he's already stressed out, so what the fuck?  
  
Yeah, he has an impressive success rate, why the fuck do you think they tolerate his shit? Yeah, cause he's the best at this crap that's why.  
  
He doesn't need a six foot tall toaster telling him the vics been stabbed 2 times! He can fucking see it!  
  
So he assigned the fucker all the paperwork and told him to stay the fuck out of his way.  
  
He's surprised when the toaster listens. Tin can had always been a fucking prick about it, even when it was work shit.  
  
He manages to deal with it for a week, even though he loses the fuckall sleep he usually gets.  
  
Then he had to let the asshole help or Fowler was going to breathe down his goddamn neck until he did.  
  
And the toaster kept trying to talk to him.  
  
Like fuck that was happening.  
  
Also, fuck no he didn't have the toaster get him coffee. He trusted the thing not the ruin his bean juice just about as far as he could throw him.  
  
He couldn't even pick him up, trust him, he'd tried.  
  
The toaster had just watched him, and Gavin could swear he looked fucking smug as Gavin gave up, skinned his knuckles on the things cheekbones and stormed away.  
  
It was three days after that when Gavin finally broke.  
  
To be fair, he had been so seething mad after that that he had thrown himself so far into work he wasn't sure which way was up. He solved three cases, forgot to eat, did his own and three colleagues paperwork, refilled the coffee for himself every time he drained it, cleaned the office, and didn't manage to catch a wink of sleep.  
  
All while studiously ignoring the toasters periodic chime ins that he should go to bed. Fuck that.  
  
So it was really no wonder he collapsed when he did.  
  
Gavin and the toaster had been sent out to investigate a domestic, nothing big, but Gavin was bursting at the seams. All caffeine, nervous energy and adrenaline. The toaster was watching him, LED running yellow, probably fucking scanning him, the asshole. Toaster looked concerned, but guess he decided it was too late, as Gavin banged way too hard on the door.  
  
“Detroit Police! Open up!”  
  
He hears some scrabbling behind the door, and as its opened he sees a male figure disappearing, the woman obviously trying not to look panicked. He doesn't even think, he pushes past the women, sprinting after the man.  
  
“Arrest her Arc! I'm going after him!” He sprints through the house, rolling through the window to the fire escape. He does several ill advised jumps to the ground to make up time, and even has a moment to wonder where ‘Arc’ came from before he yells, “Detroit Police: you are being detained!” Not arrested- he doesn't have proof of any crime except fleeing a crime scene- and then he tackles the guy.  
  
He has it under control, he has the guy handcuffed and on the ground when Arc comes running around the corner of the building. Gavin motions for the android to take the suspect back to the car, and steps back to take a breather.  
  
Damn, did the world always sway like that? He realizes that the android has just been staring at him, taking a step closer, then another toward him instead of the suspect. He starts to get pissed, but he when he takes a step forward to confront the Android, he realizes it's not the world swaying that's swaying- it's him. He waves the android off. When he speaks, “I'm fine, take the suspect to the car,” it sounds like it comes from a far off tunnel. He can barely see the android now, trying vaguely to keep looking the android in the eye for as long as the jerk kept looking at him.  
  
The last thing he saw was the androids eyes widening, the last thing he heard was his own name, yelled with more emotion then he'd ever heard from the android- or, where Gavin was concerned, from anyone. And then it all went black.  
  
That was when it started to change. They hadn't talked about it when Gavin woke up in the hospital. Gavin had briefly inquired about the feasibility of the nickname he had shouted in the spur of the moment, but that had been it.  
  
After that, it had gone all uphill for their relationship, and all downhill for Gavin.  
  
Arc was more concerned about him after that, silent touches, wordless glances, bringing him coffee or pulling the plug on his computer. All silent ways to look after his health.  
  
And Gavin? Well, Gavin was a total arse, nothing would ever change that. He still sneered at Tin Can and Hank, he still snapped at anyone and everyone. Basically he was still a little bitch, but he let Arc be for the most part. It was his silent thanks for the concern he'd showed, even when Gavin had been a complete bastard to him.  
  
On one night, (A week and a half before Gavin ends up on that roof) when Gavin had ignored Arc’s concern deep into the night to finish his paperwork, Arc finally brought it up.  
  
“Detective Reed?”  
  
Gavin doesn't even look up, just waves in acknowledgement.  
  
“Detective Reed after you collapsed I've been overly concerned about your attitude toward your health.”  
  
Gavin stiffens a little, but tries not to get pissed off. He takes deep breaths, and glances at Arc.  
  
“One overnighter isn't going to kill me Arc, it comes with the job.”  
  
Arc hesitates, and now Gavin is starting to get pissed off because he just knows that the asshole has looked into his fucking hours and vacation days and what a fucking violation of privacy.  
  
“Don't fucking tell me about my time off I'm well fucking aware.”  
  
He types angrily now. He has to finish this paperwork, pissed off or not.  
  
“Detective Reed-” He pauses, “Gavin,” Gavin starts, turning to stare at Arc, “I can finish the paperwork quite fast. I would… appreciate it. If you went to bed, and came back well rested in the morning.”  
  
His blue eyes caught Gavin’s, pleading and concerned, and then he attempted a smile. He'd never smiled at Gavin before, but this was was light, and reassuring.  
  
It felt like he'd stuck a fork into an electric socket- they still had those when he was a kid- it was sudden, and unexpected, but it suddenly struck him how amazing those eyes were. How amazing Arc was. That was when he knew he was in too deep. He'd been in too deep from the first smile Arc had ever sent his way.  
  
His lungs tightened up, and he abruptly stood, startling the android.  
  
“You're right. I'll- I'll go.”  
  
For some reason, Arc looks even more concerned, but Gavin just walks away.

 

He's throwing up vodka into his toilet at one in the morning when he notices the first petal. It's a dull blue, almost grey, but he knows what it means almost instantly. As in he knows after he throws up again and finds more bright blue- Thirium blue- and grey-blue flower petals.  
  
He leans his head against the toilet- makes a mental note to start throwing up in the bathtub- and begins to cry.  
  
When he imagined his death, he always imagined flinging himself in front of a little girl, protecting her from a gunshot. He imagined a knife sliding past his ribs and into his heart as he runs after a suspect.  
  
He imagined a quick, heroic death in the line of duty. That's what he wants. Not- not dying on the floor of his bathroom choking on flowers.  
  
And for the very first time, he thinks to himself ‘I don't want to die’  
  
He goes to work the next day like nothing’s wrong.  
  
Its pathetically easy to hide. No one messes with him, and since they spend most of this day going from one domestic to another (most of them having resolved themselves by the time they get there) Gavin can simply stay sprawled in the back seat of the car and cough flower petals into the lunch bag he stuck in his pocket as a side note.  
  
Oh, and in case you were wondering why a homicide detective was spending time on domestics- they aren't exactly over staffed at the precinct, y’know? And murders don't happen every day, so it was either this, or cold cases. Gavin hates cold cases.  
  
He doesn't hate them in the same passionate way that he hates the world. His hate for them is cold. It creeps up his spine and into his brain, spreading throughout his whole body as he stares into the eyes of children, women, men, who will only very, very rarely have justice done. He feels his fingers go numb as he reads transcripts and knows that what he's doing will more than likely be useless in the end.  
  
So he patrols, and leaves the ones with hope to spare for the cold case files.  
  
Arc looks worried all day, even though Gavin tells him he's just too tired to manually drive the car. Or, maybe that's why he's worried. Fuck, he doesn't know, he's not a fucking mind reader. All he knows is that he wants Arc to smile again. Not look so concerned.  
  
So the next day is harder. It's another patrol day, and Gavin has not only decided to drive like usual but somehow got it in his head that telling really bad jokes all day would somehow get Arc to smile at him.  
  
They're headed back to the car, a simple misunderstanding with a kid and his parents.  
  
“Why did the chicken cross the road?”  
  
Arc deadpans at him, annoyance crossing his features. Shit, Gavin would probably be annoyed too, but he can't seem to stop.  
  
“Why.”  
  
He didn't think this through, so his mouth answers for him.  
  
“‘Cause it wanted to get hit by the car.”  
  
He's not looking at Arc, so he doesn't see his jaw tense, his eyes lighting up with anger. So he's completely unprepared when Arc shoves him toward the wall. Gavin hits his head, hard, whiplash sending it back faster then he can protect it, and he slides to the ground, arms coming over his head.  
  
“Fuck, I was just trying to get you to fucking smile! Sorry I have a dark sense of humour! What the fuck?!” He spits the question out when he catches Arc’s eye, kneeling next to him looking concerned and guilty.  
  
“I apologize Detective, I was overcome with emotion for a brief moment, despite the fact shoving you that hard was an accident, I should not have resorted to violence at all. Are you all right?”  
  
Gavin eyes him for a moment. He seems sincere and he guesses the thing is supposed to be pretty human, he's allowed to make mistakes. Gavin sits up and prods at his head for a minute.  
  
“Yeah, no concussion. Probably shouldn't drive though. Apology accepted. For now. Just- tell me when you're going to incite violence on me if I tell another bad joke in the future, alright?”  
  
Arc looks guilty, and looks down.  
  
“No, that wasn't why. I quite enjoyed your attempts at humor. I just- that last one, I believe the saying is, ‘struck a nerve’”  
  
He looks so earnest and guilty that Gavin can't do anything but wave it off, take the blame on himself.  
  
“No, I deserved it. It was an insensitive joke. We haven't joked around much so I should have been more careful.”  
  
The android huffs in frustration. To repeat that, he huffs. In _frustration._ Gavin would almost be proud if he wasn't in so much pain.  
  
“I mean,” And oh, the android has finally learned that tone of voice, huh, “that I had an overly emotional reaction to you in particular telling that joke, as it finally clicked into place that you genuinely do not care about your own life. But I do care about your life Detective. And I do not appreciate your lack of regard for it.”  
  
His blue eyes look straight into Gavin’s, and it seems almost like he's prying into the innermost secrets of his soul.  
  
And Gavin thinks, ‘Oh shit I'm going to die. I'm not going to die right now because no way in hell am I letting this smug asshole know I have fucking hanahaki. But as soon as I lock the door to my apartment I'm fucking screwed.’  
And then he thought, ‘Holy shit my fingers are turning purple’  
  
He has to breath. Arc is getting worried, his face must be turning blue. He has to breath. He can’t. He can’t without coughing and he can’t cough. He feels himself being forcefully thrown to the ground, and fuck he doesn’t want to die with broken ribs, that would suck, so he coughs. The hands that had planted themselves on his chest hesitate, and he coughs again, harder.  
  
He turns on his side and has a coughing fit.  
  
He tries. He tries to hide it, even still. He brings his hands up and places them over his mouth, turns his head into the ground and avoids looking into those dull blue eyes.  
  
Arc pulls his hands back to his sides, and he can hear him say something, but he can’t make sense of the words.  
  
For some reason all he can think about is all the books that he used to read. How they used to describe looking into someone’s eyes, and the color was always vivid. Blue as the sky, as green as the grass. He wonders idly, as complete flowers, blue-grey and bright Thirium blue, fall out of his mouth: why did he ever believed that? He’s only ever seen one person with eyes as blue as the sky and it was that one dude who starred in the street racing movies and then died in a street race.  
  
He’s trying to remember the guys name when he suddenly has FINGERS in his MOUTH. He freaks out. What the fuck?! He lashes out, his awareness only partially coming back due to the slightly lessened obstruction. He can suddenly take a much deeper breath, the fingers are gone, and he’s been slammed against the ground. Again.  
  
Arc leans close, whispering straight into his ear. Perhaps in an attempt to be heard this time.  
  
“I am removing the flowers from your airway, so that you expend less energy and may focus on breathing. Calm down and allow me to help.”  
  
Oh. Ohhhh. Warn a guy! He relaxes, and after several minutes of coughing and removing, Gavin finally manages to take a deep breath. Arc starts talking, probably asking questions, but Gavin ignores him. He picks up the flowers, throws them in a nearby trash bin- he, this is fucking embarrassing, but he pressed a couple of the flowers at home. He starts to the car, deftly stepping to the side when Arc steps in front of him. Arc reaches out for his arm, and he does a spin to avoid him. Arc walks faster, and so does Gavin. Arc’s face turns down into a frown, and he starts to jog. Gavin starts sprinting.  
  
Arc runs after him. Gavin had almost made it to the car when Arc grabs his arm. Gavin ducks down and throws Arc over his shoulder. The android quickly recovers and kicks his legs out from under him just as he’s opening the car door. Gavin does a backwards somersault to his feet. Arc stands up slowly. They stare each other down for a long moment.  
  
Gavin jumps over the car. Arc grabs the car door. Gavin slowly opens his car door. Arc does the same. They stare each other down as Arc slowly slides into the car.  
  
Gavin slams the door and darts across the street, fleeing down the sidewalk.  
  
Gavin can hear Arc yell “MOTHERFUCKER,” as he scrambles out of the car and after Gavin.  
  
He can’t help it, he starts to laugh. He rounds a corner with Arc right on his heels, and catches the android beginning to grin out of the corner of his eye. A trash can next to a fence catches his eye, and Gavin’s grin takes on a devious edge.  
  
“PARKOUR!” He yells and sprints ahead of Arc, headed straight for the trash can. He can tell the exact moment when Arc realizes what he’s going to do, because he swears he hears gears grinding, and the android yells at him not to do it. Fuck that.  
  
He jumps on the trash can and front flips over the fence. It’s been a while, so he botches the landing (probably a sprained ankle but he won’t worry about that right now) but otherwise it’s perfec. He starts laughing hysterically. He looks up at Arc, staring at him from the other side of the fence, and gives him a wink. He catches his breath, “I win,” he eventually manages to get out.  
  
He laughs himself out, and then stares upwards at the top of the fence, “Yeah, I’m gonna need some help getting back over this thing. Sprained my ankle.”  
  
Arc gives him an exasperated look but manages to help him back over the fence somehow. They both end up sprawled in the backseat of the car, limbs hopelessly tangled in a competition to be the most comfortable and have the most space until Gavin finally got tired of it (and started coughing again) and let Arc win. They relaxed all the way to the police station, but when they got back into the car to go back out patrolling Arc gives him the look. The We-have-to-to-talk-about-this-now look. Gavin sighs, “What, what do you want me to say?”  
  
“Why did you have flowers, as far as I can tell something that should only grow in the ground, pouring out of your mouth?”  
  
They didn’t tell the robots about hanahaki. Of course they didn’t. It was ridiculously rare (Gavin knew exactly where he had picked it up, but that’s a story for later) and a lot of people who even knew what it was dismissed it as frivolous. Gavin would be one of those people except for that story that’s for later.  
  
So, he could explain, except leave a few key details out. Like the name, so the fucker can’t google it.  
  
“It’s this… infection,” This was a purposeful manipulation. Most people wouldn’t change the word you used if they decided to google it, and putting in infection instead of disease would throw off the search engine, “You get it from another person, but it takes specific conditions to make the seeds bloom. Most people are infected with it, but very few get it. Scientists can’t really agree on the specifics. Sometimes it just seems to happen.”  
  
“Is it curable?”  
  
Gavin can’t look at him. Can’t see the look of concern he can hear in the voice. He’s silent for a while, probably long enough to answer Arc’s question anyway, but he still vocalizes it.  
  
“There is for some people, but my circumstances make it impossible. The, placement, or something…” This last part was a blatant lie, he hadn’t been to a doctor, but he didn’t want him asking if it was money or anything.  
  
He hears a sharp intake of breath, can practically see Arc nodding. He wasn’t expecting him to start crying. It starts out quiet- he doesn’t even realize it at first. He turns quickly when he hears a muffled sob, and the view breaks his heart. Arc has his face mostly turned away, and his hand over his mouth. His LED is a solid red. He can see the tears streaking their way down his cheeks. He finds himself reaching out, unable to do anything else. He doesn’t want this to pain him, not at all. He knows it will, now that they’re more partners then they were not quite working together because of Gavin’s attitude, but he doesn’t want it to.  
  
He wipes the tears away with his thumbs as best he can, but Arc is still crying so it’s a bit of a useless endeavor at this point. So he settles for just having his hands there while he talks.  
  
“Arc, Arc it’s okay. I know it sucks. Trust me I know. But it’s okay. Honestly you’re… you’re the first friend I’ve made in a long, long time. It sucks that it’s happening now of all times, but I don’t have much to live for.”  
  
Well, there had been that cat he had planned to adopt from the shelter but… he got an acquaintance of his to take in the little guy when he started throwing up petals. He had wanted to see that movie that was coming out in April. Fuck he’s going to stop now before he starts crying.  
  
“You think of me as a friend?”  
  
He starts a little, unprepared to be jolted out of his thoughts, but prepared with an immediate answer.  
  
“Yes, yes I do.”  
  
Arc takes his hands, and places both sets of hands on the seats beside them.  
  
“I think of you as a friend too. And-” He takes a second, probably to keep himself from breaking down again, “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t know how to express… I’m not very good at this” Gavin looked down at their hands as the car pulls back into the police station- their shift must be over.  
  
“Neither am I.”  
  
Then he clambers out of the car. He doesn’t want to talk anymore or he might start crying. Arc climbs out a second later. As they walk toward the building, he hears a voice that sounds suspiciously like Hank say, “What’s up with them?”  
Then a voice that sounds suspiciously like Connor say, “I believe that we probably do not have any desire to have that piece of information.”  
  
What a fucking asshole way to say “Dude I don’t fucking want to know”  
  
Fuck it, he’s off work in the five minutes it’ll take him to sign out at the desk. He just keeps walking.  
  
It would be awkward the next day, but the next day is Saturday. Or he thought.  
  
The asshole shows up at work an hour after he does looking significantly more annoyed than usual. He hides under his desk. It’s fucking childish but holy fuck is he suddenly overcome with the strong desire not to have this talk with Arc. Arc makes a beeline for him anyway, stupid robot eyes with stupid heat signature scanning bullshit.  
  
“Gavin why are you under the desk.”  
  
Gavin peeks out from under the desk.  
  
“Lost my pen. Guess it rolled away.”  
  
Arc seems to take that answer as the truth, even though it’s fucking bullshit. Gavin clambers out from under the desk, and leans back into his chair. He basically uses the seat as a backrest and the desk as a footrest.  
As his youthful peers used to say, he sits in it really really gay. Not in the bad way. In the gay people don’t know how to sit in fucking chairs way.  
  
He had started sitting in chairs wrong after seeing that meme. He couldn’t exactly come out, so it was the small things. He usually didn’t do it at work but nobody but him and Arc were there so. Fuck it.  
  
“Gavin that can’t be comfortable.”  
  
It wasn’t.  
  
“It’s fun.”  
  
Arc looks at him for a few seconds, and then goes over and does it in his chair.  
  
“You’re right. This is fun.”  
  
Gavin starts to laugh. He laughs so hard he falls in between the chair in the desk. Arc does too, since he doesn’t have enough practice he just falls.  
  
“Gavin. Gavin this is serious I’m stuck.”  
  
Gavin nearly dies right there and then from laughter.  
  
That’s how they spend Saturday. They barely get any work done, because they just spend it fucking around in the chairs. They have a chair race at one point. Winner was… indeterminable.  
  
That’s how they spend that week. They don’t talk about it, but they don’t let it hang over their heads either. They have fun, and Gavin spends every moment he can soaking up Arc’s presence.  
  
That’s why, at the end of that week, the end of the month that he’s known Arc up to the point where he’s found himself dangling from the edge of a roof, for the first time he thinks to himself that he doesn’t want to die.  
  
He thinks that because his neighbor is pointing a gun at him. He had needed to go shopping. He was smiling stupidly at his phone because Arc had sent him a stupid cat meme. It was wearing sunglasses and actually looked ridiculously like Gavin. He had just locked the door when he hears a gunshot ring out. He feels the air pass by his head and sees the bullet lodge itself into the doorframe. He turns, and sees the gun in the shaking hands of his neighbor, pointed right at him. And he thinks “I don’t want to die.”  
  
He runs. The stairs are two doors down from him, and he can certainly get there before this asshole can get off another shot. Down? No, other people would be down. Up. Up up up.  
  
He feels himself cough, but he doesn’t have time now. The petals- is it a flower? It should be a flower, ends up clenched in his fist. He reaches the roof, adrenaline keeping him from feeling the strain in his limbs, the shortness of his breath. He looks around for cover, but the door to the roof slams open behind him. He turns, ready to talk him down, ready to try anything. He locks eyes with his assailant and gets very, very angry. The fucker is high. High on fucking what, he doesn’t know. But high off of his fucking mind. He is, in absolutely no way, shape, or form going to be killed by this motherfucker. So he jumps He jumps right off the roof. Now he’s hanging here, by his fingers, just barely.  
  
He hears the door slam as the man runs away, probably finally came to his fucking senses. That happens. He releases his tight grip on the… petals? What? He watches them flutter to the ground. He can hang here for a while, but, when he tries to pull himself back up he realizes that his momentum swung him around and twisted his shoulder so badly he can’t pull himself back up.  
  
He stares at his fingers in horror until he remembers that he automatically returned his phone to his pocket when he sprinted away from the crazy motherfucker. He manages to keep his laugh soft, but if his life wasn’t on the line he would definitely be in hysterics. He’d stuck his fucking phone back in his pocket instead of dropping it like a normal person.  
  
He calls Arc. Of course he does. Who else? The police? He doesn’t want to spend his last bit of time like that. Talking to his fucking coworker who probably hates him as he’s about to die.  
  
The phone only rings once before Arc picks up.  
  
“Gavin? What is it?”  
  
“Kinda in a tight spot right now. Figured I’d call you before I, y’know. Bit it.”  
  
“Can I help you? What does “Bite it” mean?”  
  
“Fuck seriously? Those Cyberlife motherfuckers are one of the weird ass people who’ve never heard the phrase “Bite the dust” before?”  
  
“Or maybe they just felt it irrelevant.”  
  
“Well. Either way, in this context it basically means I’m hanging off my apartment rooftop by four fingers and a thumb.”  
  
“What?! Gavin have you called the police? I’m alerting them now and I’m on my way.”  
  
He chuckles at that.  
  
“Unless one of you can pull me up off this roof in the next five minutes I’d rather just talk to you.”  
  
“... I was actually on my way. I’m nearly there. Hold on.”  
  
“What? Dude I was going shopping I wouldn’t have even been here when you showed up.”  
  
Arc curses. He actually curses, holy fucking shit.  
  
“I just wanted to see you, didn’t really think about it.”  
  
And holy shit there was the Taxi. There was Arc getting out of the Taxi. His fingers were really starting to fucking hurt but holy shit he wasn’t going to die. He could even hear the sirens in the distance.  
  
“I’d wave but I’m really against losing my phone now that I’m not going to die. Deus ex machina much?”  
  
Arc doesn’t wave at him, just sprints into the building. They must have built a phone into him, ‘cause he certainly doesn’t see one in the android’s hands.  
  
“Hold on. Just hold on.”  
  
“Yep. Doing so. Hurry up.”  
  
Just when his fingers are burning so badly he’s not sure if he can hold on much longer he hears the tell-tale thumps of Arc’s footsteps. Just a few seconds later he feels Arc’s hand wrap around his wrist. He feels himself being pulled up and into the androids arms. He feels the instant relief of not gonna die.  
  
He’s ready to collapse onto the rooftop and lay there for an unhealthy amount of time, but his shoulder falls against a strong chest, instead of the gravel he was expecting. Even as the pain of the muscles in his fingers retracting crashes over him, he feels Arc’s arms wrap around him. Gavin tries to shift his weight back, fear of the petals overcoming him registering in some small part of his barely conscious brain, but he doesn’t have the energy to fight against it when Arc’s arms simply tighten around him. He leans against Arc, who’s murmuring something he can’t really hear over the ringing in his ears.  
  
He can physically feel the adrenaline leave him, his body relaxing. He dimly hears a siren as black starts seeping into his vision. His mind wanders to the crazy bastard who shot at him, wonders if he’s gonna have to stay out of the precinct while they hold him for bail. His mind pulls up his thought from earlier- his phone. He’d put his phone in his pocket while he ran from a maniac. Hysteric’s overcome him as his consciousness finally fades.

  


 

He wakes up warm, comfortable, staring at a ceiling, and in a considerable amount of pain. He clamps his mouth shut, unclenching his teeth- funny trick for coughing, that you only find out from experience. He ignores the pain and the suffocation as his eyes dart around the room. Not his- and Arc was asleep (or whatever Robot’s counted as sleep) next to him, so he concluded that it was probably a hotel room. Or perhaps the Android had gotten an apartment, but the size and the stock soups on the sink led him to think hotel room.  
  
He knows that if he moves, Arc will wake up, so he doesn’t. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t cough. He barely breathes.  
  
Fuck, it hurts so badly. He wonders how badly it would have hurt to fall from his apartment building, and decides with how much this hurts he would rather not know. He looks back at Arc’s face. Thinks he should probably cough. How sucky would that be, to save someone from death and have them die in your arms from an illness the very next morning?  
  
He opens his mouth, and finds he no longer had the energy. His eyes widen slightly, momentarily. It’s terrifying.  
  
Unless you’ve nearly suffocated you can’t understand how it feels. Your body just… relaxes. He closes his eyes. He can’t stand the blackness again. It’s so much scarier this time. For some reason he can’t feel the pain anymore. He feels relaxed, but a long time later, an agonizingly long time later he feels himself move. His chest had been heaving for a while, and it had finally alerted Arc. Ah, now that was unfortunate. He feels his head tip back- CPR, probably, and his lips tip upwards into a smirk as the person known as Gavin Reed fades away. 

 

Gavin Reed officially dies of Hanahaki disease at 3:52 A.M. 

 

The RK-900 model is officially declared irreparable at 9:00 P.M. 

 

The pair of desks that the two used at the Chicago Police Department are used in a memorial for understanding between humans and Androids at a newly created museum meant to educate on the Android Revolution.

**Author's Note:**

> HAHAHAHAHAH yes. FINALLY. I don't know if you could tell but I was trying really hard to kill Gavin and he just wouldn't die. The bugger is persistent, I'll give him that.


End file.
